Feather vs Quill - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between feather and quill

is that feather is a branching, hair-like structure that grows on the bodies of birds, used for flight, swimming, protection and display while quill is the lower shaft of a feather, specifically the region lacking barbs.

As verbs the difference between feather and quill

is that feather is to cover or furnish with feathers while quill is to pierce or be pierced with quills.

As a proper noun Quill is

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feather

English

(wikipedia feather)

Alternative forms

* fether

Noun

(en noun)

A branching, hair-like structure that grows on the bodies of birds, used for flight, swimming, protection and display.

* 1873 , W. K. Brooks, "A Feather", Popular Science Monthly , volume IV, page 687

Notice, too, that the shaft is not straight, but bent so that the upper surface of the feather is convex, and the lower concave.

* 1914 , , The Beasts of Tarzan , chapter V

Big fellows they were, all of them, their barbaric headdresses and grotesquely painted faces, together with their many metal ornaments and gorgeously coloured feathers , adding to their wild, fierce appearance.

* 2000 , C. J. Puotinen, The Encyclopedia of Natural Pet Care? , page 362

Nesting birds pluck some of their own feathers' to line the nest, but ' feather plucking in pet birds is entirely different.

Long hair on the lower legs of a dog or horse, especially a draft horse, notably the Clydesdale breed. Narrowly only the rear hair.

One of the fins or wings on the shaft of an arrow.

A longitudinal strip projecting from an object to strengthen it, or to enter a channel in another object and thereby prevent displacement sideways but permit motion lengthwise; a spline.

Kind; nature; species (from the proverbial phrase "birds of a feather").

* Shakespeare

I am not of that feather to shake off / My friend when he must need me.

One of the two shims of the three-piece stone-splitting tool known as (plug and feather) or plug and feathers; the feathers are placed in a borehole and then a wedge is driven between them, causing the stone to split.

(Knight)

The angular adjustment of an oar or paddle-wheel float, with reference to a horizontal axis, as it leaves or enters the water.

Synonyms

* (horse hair) feathers, feathering, horsefeathers

Antonyms

* (horse hair at rear of lower legs) spats

Derived terms

{{der3, afterfeather , birds of a feather , contour feather , featherback , featherbed , featherbedding , featherbrain , feather-brained , featherdown , feather duster , featherhead , featherily , featheriness , feathering float , feathering screw , feathering strip , feathering wheel , feather in one's cap , feather in one's hat , featherless , featherlight , featherlike , feather pen , feathertail , featherweight , featherwood , feather wool , featherwork , feathery , fine feathers make fine birds , flight feather , horsefeathers , light as a feather}}

Verb

(en verb)

To cover or furnish with feathers.

* L'Estrange

An eagle had the ill hap to be struck with an arrow feathered from her own wing.

To arrange in the manner or appearance of feathers.

The stylist feathered my hair.

(ambitransitive, rowing) To rotate the oars while they are out of the water to reduce wind resistance.

(aeronautics) To streamline the blades of an aircraft's propeller by rotating them perpendicular to the axis of the propeller when the engine is shut down so that the propeller doesn't windmill as the aircraft flies.

After striking the bird, the pilot feathered the left, damaged engine's propeller.

(carpentry, engineering) To finely shave or bevel an edge.

(computer graphics) To intergrade or blend the pixels of an image with those of a background or neighboring image.

To adorn, as with feathers; to fringe.

* Sir Walter Scott

A few birches and oaks still feathered the narrow ravines.

To render light as a feather; to give wings to.

* Loveday

The Polonian story perhaps may feather some tedious hours.

To enrich; to exalt; to benefit.

* Francis Bacon

They stuck not to say that the king cared not to plume his nobility and people to feather himself.

(Dryden)

To tread, as a cock.

(Dryden)

Derived terms

* feathered * feather one's nest * feather one's own nest * tar and feather

References

* Horse Glossary * Horses Glossary * Cowboy Dictionary] – [http://www.cowboyway.com/Dictionary/Letter-F.htm Cowboy F: Feather

Anagrams

* *

quill

English

Noun

(en noun)

The lower shaft of a feather, specifically the region lacking barbs.

A pen made from a feather.

(figuratively) Any pen.Oxford English Dictionary , 2nd ed., 1989.

He picked up his quill and wrote a poem.

A sharply pointed, barbed, and easily detached needle-like structure that grows on the skin of a porcupine or hedgehog as a defense against predators.

A thin piece of bark, especially of cinnamon or cinchona, curled up into a tube.

The pen of a squid.

(music) The plectrum with which musicians strike the strings of certain instruments.

(music) The tube of a musical instrument.

* Milton

He touched the tender stops of various quills .

Something having the form of a quill, such as the fold or plain of a ruff, or (weaving) a spindle, or spool, upon which the thread for the woof is wound in a shuttle.

Verb

(en verb)

To pierce or be pierced with quills.

* 1966 , David Francis Costello, The World of the Porcupine , J. B. Lippincott & Company, page 66:

Coyotes, bears, and mountain lions which occasionally kill porcupines are sometimes quilled .

* 2010 , Mark Parman, A Grouse Hunter's Almanac: The Other Kind of Hunting , University of Wisconsin Press, ISBN 978-0-299-24920-5, page 49:

Then one of my dogs got quilled , and it happened again a month later. After putting the dog in a headlock, yanking out several dozen quills, and spurting blood all over myself and the decking of the back porch, I at least understood his antiporcupine venom.

(figuratively) To write.

* 1939 , , Finnegans Wake , page 182:

Nibs never would have quilled a seriph to sheepskin.

* 1976 , , Investigative Poetry , City Lights (1976), page 11:

One has only to recall that Coleridge and Wordsworth one day were lounging by the sea shore, while nearby sat an English police agent on snitch patrol prepared to rush to headquarters to quill a report about the conversation.

To form fabric into small, rounded folds.

To decorate with quillwork.

* 2007 , David J. Wishart, Encyclopedia of the Great Plains Indians , University of Nebraska Press (2007), ISBN 0-8032-9862-5, page 32:

Another characteristic of Plains Indians was the fairly strict division between art made and used by men and art made and used by women. Although men and women sometimes cooperated, women usually painted or quilled very balanced, controlled geometric designs on dresses, moccasins, robes, bags, and containers.

References

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